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Original poster

Which authors' success is a complete mystery to you?

503 replies

emkana · 13/01/2008 19:15

Tony Parsons

Jodi Picoult

OP posts:
GetOrfMoiLand · 14/01/2008 10:13

Wuthering Heights - couldn't stand it. Hysterical nonsense.

Funnily enough was having a debate with stepson about this last week - he thinks WH is wonderful and I was going on about how crap it was. I think he was a bit shocked that anyone could be so critical about a classic (oh well he is only 20, has time to learn!)

redadmiral · 14/01/2008 10:12

Margaret Atwood too 'worthy' for me...

MaryAnnSingleton · 14/01/2008 10:11

I did like Jane Eyre !

alicefairfax · 14/01/2008 10:10

You can't lump the bronte sisters together. Jane Eyre is fantastic and Wuthering Heights is so dull and depressing.

MaryAnnSingleton · 14/01/2008 10:08

I've posted elsewhere about Wuthering Height,which I'm meant to be reading for book group, but I'm close to giving up - it is of no interest to me, despite others raving about it

redadmiral · 14/01/2008 10:06

Paul Auster very pretentious IMO.

finknottle · 14/01/2008 10:04

Some books are better (or only bearable) as Audiobooks imo. They're usually abridged and the story comes over better. You can listen with half an ear while doing something else.
E.g. I enjoyed Chocolat but tried to read it after was disppointed.
Story telling again.

MaryAnnSingleton · 14/01/2008 10:03

Didn't rate Birdsong much,I'm afraid

GetOrfMoiLand · 14/01/2008 09:57

As much as I convinced myself I would hate any book written by a man called Sebastian, I actually liked Birdsong and Charlotte Grey.

All misery-lit books are awful. My mum buys these. I think there must be a sector of British publishing who are secretly very ashamed of themselves for being involved with this tosh. It's voyeuristic, imo.

Tried to read that Chocolat book (again, recommended by my mum) and couldn't bear it. Fey, contrived nonsense.

Remember ploughing through Jackie Collins and Shirley Conran doorstop sized books when I was a teenager and thinking they were great (full of sex scenes, what more do you want when you are 14) - I have tried to read them as an adult and couldn't get past the first chapter - really, really badly written.

finknottle · 14/01/2008 09:54

Think you're right UD about "getting" authors/style or not.
Also I can forgive appalling writing (Jo Rowling) when the writer is a good story-teller. Big difference imo.
Suppose same goes for Pratchett.

Paul Auster. Anyone explain why he's supposed to be good?

purplemonkeydishwasher · 14/01/2008 09:54

at Margaret Atwood being mentioned on here!

even bigger that NO ONE has mentioned Jilly effing Cooper!

redadmiral · 14/01/2008 09:42

Ben Okri and Umberto Eco... They just keep coming...

UnquietDad · 14/01/2008 09:34

Pratchett you either "get" or you don't. I used to get one every Christmas and I'd be guffawing in the corner - would read chunks out to my family to a stony silence.

redadmiral · 14/01/2008 09:25

Iorek. At least I said I did enjoy reading her books....

I found some of them a bit samey and fomulaic. However did read the recent one about the Polish nanny which I liked.

Mommalove · 14/01/2008 00:43

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lennygrrl · 14/01/2008 00:07

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expatinscotland · 13/01/2008 23:54

Bill Bryson.

Why?

IorekByrnison · 13/01/2008 23:48

Quite dittany. I can only think that it is either because (a) she writes predominantly about women (b) because she has a wonderfully light touch which is foolishly mistaken for a lack of serious intent.

Whatever, it's wrong. I'm off to bed with a copy of the Hearts and Lives of Men.

TotalChaos · 13/01/2008 23:41

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong. surprisingly dreary and unerotic.

dittany · 13/01/2008 23:39

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Pruners · 13/01/2008 23:38

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IorekByrnison · 13/01/2008 23:33

Damn clearly I've missed a Middlemarch fight. Is it too late to join in?

I thought Casaubon was pretty convincing, both as misplaced father figure to Dorothea, and as someone who has lived a tragically futile and unhappy life through fear of experience. No?

IorekByrnison · 13/01/2008 23:29

redadmiral it's the lack of critical acclaim for Fay Weldon I'm bemoaning not the other way round. I think a lot of her books are brilliant - and in a proper serious way, not in the shallow proto-chick lit way you'd expect from their covers.

barbarianoftheuniverse · 13/01/2008 23:28

Then why did she call it Middlemarch?
Why not 'Casubon: A Device' ?

Oh then I could have born it.
As it was the only person I was rooting for was the old lady who stole sugar lumps.

I have just had a session with ds re English coursework and whether it could possibly be put off for another 24hrs.
IMNVHO English literature teaching has a lot to do with this list.

Califrau · 13/01/2008 23:28

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